TRAVELLING to Cambridge on a late train the other evening, I sensed a mood of concern on the face of the young lady sitting opposite me.

I asked if something was bothering her and enquired whether I might be of assistance in any way. She answered with one word: “Pangolins”.

“Scaly little things,” I said, “but of no danger, as far as I know, to anything other than termites and ants. There are, I believe, three recorded cases of humans being killed by anteaters but none that I recall by pangolins.”

“It’s not pangolins eating humans I’m concerned about but the other way round,” she said. “They’re seen as a culinary delicacy in Vietnam and their scales are used in Chinese medicine. As a result they are being eaten and hunted out of existence.

"I’ve just been at a dinner at London Zoo where the problem was discussed. All eight species of pangolin are now threatened with extinction. We must act now to save the pangolin before it is too late.”

“That’s awful,” I said, wondering whether I could find time between my work with K-Slott (Keep Sea-Lions Off The Tubes) and the SAS (Sloth Appreciation Society) to do anything for the pangolins as well. “Somehow we must increase public awareness of pangolins but it’s not going to be easy. They’re not furry or cuddly like sloths.”

“But they are adorable!” the young lady protested. “They look like long pine cones with noses and roll up into balls like hedgehogs but even better. Yet there is now more illegal trade in pangolins than any other animal.”

There is now more illegal trade in pangolins than any other animal

I racked my brain for anything I knew about pangolins that might be helpful. “The word ‘pangolins’ is an anagram of ‘plainsong’,” I said.

“Interesting,” she replied. “I never knew that. But how does it help?”

“Perhaps we could make a video of baby pangolins and get someone to compose a Pangolin Concerto to be played in the background accompanied by monks chanting.”

She looked sceptical, so I went on: “Of course that would be just the start of the campaign. We could then launch a range of household goods in the shape of pangolins.

"A boot-scraper giant pangolin, for example, to enable people on entering a house to scrape their shoes on its scales, or a kitchen gadget somewhere between a slicer, grater and a shredder, which uses the sharpened scales to do the work. We already have a mandolin for slicing; why not have a pangolin for more refined culinary work?”

“Last month,” she said, “Customs officers in Vietnam seized 1.4 tonnes of pangolin scales that had been illegally imported from Sierra Leone.”

“Using them as shredder/grater/slicers would give another meaning to the term ‘kitchen scales’,” I said.

“And they make pangolin foetus soup in Vietnam,” she added, her eyes welling up with tears as she did so. “We must save the pangolin.”

“In my long life so far,” I said, “I have saved a little money; I have saved a good deal of energy; I have saved time where possible. I shall now do my best to save pangolins.”